Kalshi Attracts $12 Billion Valuation Talks as Investors Pile Into Regulated Event-Trading Boom

Surging Interest Pushes Prediction-Market Operator’s Value Beyond $10 Billion Amid Expanding Global Reach

TL;DR:

• Kalshi is fielding investor offers valuing the company between $10 billion and $12 billion, just weeks after a $300 million funding round at a $5 billion valuation.
• The platform’s annualized trading volume has hit $50 billion, following a court victory that unlocked election-based contracts.
• Kalshi’s regulated framework under the CFTC and its rapid global expansion are reshaping how event markets intersect with the broader coin market cap and prediction-driven trading landscape.

Kalshi Inc. is drawing investor attention at a pace rarely seen in regulated finance, with offers valuing the prediction-market platform between $10 billion and $12 billion, according to multiple reports published October 22, 2025. The discussions surfaced only weeks after Kalshi secured a $300 million funding round led by Sequoia and Andreessen Horowitz that had already placed its valuation at roughly $5 billion. Bloomberg first reported that venture capital firms are now vying to buy into Kalshi at double that price, signaling how swiftly investor sentiment around event-based trading is heating up.

Founded in 2018 by Tarek Mansour and Luana Lopes Lara, Kalshi lets users trade on the outcomes of real-world events—everything from U.S. elections and macroeconomic releases to sports tournaments and the length of government shutdowns. Unlike most decentralized prediction markets, Kalshi operates under direct oversight of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, a regulatory distinction that has become its defining competitive moat. Its CFTC license allows the firm to list binary contracts that traditional exchanges avoided, turning what was once a niche experiment into a legitimate trading venue attracting both retail traders and hedge-fund participants seeking hedges tied to non-traditional data points that move the crypto price index and broader risk appetite.

Momentum accelerated after a decisive court ruling in late 2024 cleared Kalshi to list presidential-election contracts, a move that catalyzed a surge in trading volumes and user activity. The company now reports an annualized volume near $50 billion, tripling its size over the past year. Mansour described the expansion as transformative, noting that Kalshi has become “the largest prediction market in the world.” Bloomberg’s sources said investor proposals at the higher $12 billion mark are being reviewed internally, with negotiations still fluid.

Competition is intensifying quickly. Rival platform Polymarket, which operates in a more crypto-native environment, recently drew a valuation near $8 billion after pledging up to $2 billion in new capital. Yet Kalshi’s regulatory status continues to set it apart from most blockchain-based event exchanges, which often face compliance restrictions that limit mainstream participation. Analysts following the space argue that Kalshi’s hybrid model—combining traditional regulatory rigor with event-driven speculation once confined to the fringes of crypto price prediction—has positioned it to capture institutional flows that had previously stayed on the sidelines.

Recent fundraising milestones illustrate that trajectory. Kalshi was valued at $2 billion in June 2025 after a $185 million raise; by October, its market value had jumped to $5 billion with the $300 million infusion, and the latest investor overtures suggest a doubling again within weeks. That pace of appreciation reflects growing appetite for financial instruments linked to real-time public sentiment and macro events—factors increasingly intertwined with digital-asset volatility and shifts in the global coin market cap. The firm’s reach now spans over 140 countries, underscoring its push toward global retail accessibility as regulatory clarity improves across jurisdictions.

The investor enthusiasm echoes the broader speculative energy running through alternative-asset markets, where new ways to hedge political risk or economic uncertainty are finding strong liquidity. Kalshi’s valuation leap has therefore become a barometer for how mainstream finance views event-based prediction markets: not as curiosities of internet gambling, but as a maturing asset class parallel to derivatives that track indices and commodities. Whether that optimism holds once regulatory scrutiny and user-growth expectations converge remains the key storyline to watch as the company weighs its next capital move.

This article has been refined and enhanced by ChatGPT.